A medical emergency. If that’s not song and dance material, I don’t know what is.
But under composer William Finn’s tunefully neurotic steerage, serious brain trauma becomes a bright, fresh and improbably uplifting tribute to the power of art to heal and transform.
A New Brain, staged with smartness and sparkle by Iron Crow Theatre under the direction of Sean Elias, is a quick-moving musical based on the true-life experience of Finn being diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation after he passed out in his ziti at lunch.
Finn’s alter-ego is Gordon Michael Schwinn (Charles Johnson), a gifted songwriter frustrated with his current gig composing ditties for Mr. Bungee (John Knapp), a kiddie show hosted by a frog, actually a frog with a bit of an edge to him, like Pee Wee Herman with webbed feet.
Mr. Bungee is demanding songs about spring and the word “yes” and Gordon can’t come up with anything pithy or clever and kvetches he’s wasting his life on dreck to his best friend Rhoda (Kathryne Daniels).
Cut to the hospital bed where Gordon has a dark night of the soul, knowing that he has all these songs inside him but wondering if he is going to live long enough to write them. As Gordon stews over his fate, a parade of people swirl in and out of his consciousness—his helicopter mother Mimi (Sebastian Ryder), his dreamboat preppie lover Roger (Brian Ott), the “nice” night nurse Richard (Nicholas Miles), the exhaustingly peppy day nurse (Eva Hellerbach), the coldly clinical surgeon (Knapp again) and of course, Mr. Bungee, the stuff of nightmares and self-doubt.
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The song cycle moves to and fro from light tunes (“Frogs Have So Much Spring,” “Be Polite to Everyone,” “Yes”) and witty and energetic patter songs (“And They’re Off,” “Gordo’s Law of Genetics,” “Sitting Becalmed in the Lee of Cuttyhunk”) to Broadway bombast (“Mother’s Gonna Make Things Fine,” “Eating Myself Up Alive,” “Change”) and tender ballads (“Sailing,” “An Invitation to Sleep in my Arms”) and the closing number, the lump-in-the-throat stirring “I Feel So Much Spring.”
The staging is brisk and simple, a series of sheer curtains that become hospital walls, billowing sails and other effects, a swirling hospital bed on wheels, and a piano that gets whisked on and off stage efficiently. Some of the other scene changes requiring chairs and tables were bumpy and took too long.
The Iron Crow cast is more than up to A New Brain’s intricate song stylings and wordplay lyrics, which put you in mind of Sondheim’s phrasing but are also peculiar to Finn. Some of the upper registers were wobbly for the male singers, as well as abrupt key changes, and sound and pitch problems plagued the cast throughout.
A New Brain from Iron Crow Theatre closes June 9, 2019. Details and tickets
Standout performances include Nicholas Miles, fluid and flirty good fun in his numbers “Poor, Unsuccessful and Fat” and “Eating Myself Up Alive” and Sebastian Ryder as stage mother Mimi who could kick Mama Rose’s butt, as seen in the brass and bravado of “Mother’s Gonna Make Things Fine,” “Throw It Out” and the elegiac torch song “Music Still Plays On.” Eva Hellerbach possesses the ability to Broadway belt and execute an excellent split in the song “Calamari.” Danielle Harrow, playing the homeless woman who doesn’t want bills but begs instead for “change,” raises the roof in her song “Change,” with a big voice she ably controls, building to a climax that reminds you of the shattering ending of “The Ladies Who Lunch,” where the women are urged to “Rise, Rise, Rise!”
Iron Crow’s production may not be utterly seamless, but there are ample bright spots—and that divine, eccentric William Finn score—that make it an entertaining homage to music and medicine.
A New Brain . Music and lyrics by William Finn . Book by William Finn and James Lapine . Book Directed by Charles Johnson . Director: Sean Elias. Featuring Kathryne Daniels, Danniell Harrow, Eva Hellerbach, Charles Jonson, John Knapp, Nicholas Miles, Brian Ott, Sebastian Ryder . Costume Design: April Forrer. Set Design: Keith Silberg. Lighting Design: Janine Vreatt. Stage Manager: River Hansen. Assistant Stage Manager: Nicholle D’Anna. Music Director: Charles Johnson. Accompanist: Ching-Yi Lin. Accompanist: Suzanne Jones. Produced by Iron Crow Theatre . Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.
